


Prime Suspect

by HermitLibrary_Archivist



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M, Murder Mystery, Post Gauda Prime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-26
Updated: 2008-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:29:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4830824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HermitLibrary_Archivist/pseuds/HermitLibrary_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By Nova</p><p>Bedbound on Gauda Prime, Blake turns detective and solves his own attempted murder</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prime Suspect

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Judith and Aralias, the archivists: This story was originally archived at [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hermit_Library), which was closed due to maintenance costs and lack of time. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2015. We posted announcements about the move and emailed authors as we imported, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hermitlibrary/profile). 
> 
> This work has been backdated to 26th of May 2008, which is the last date the Hermit.org archive was updated, not the date this fic was written. In some cases, fics can be dated more precisely by searching for the zine they were originally published in on [Fanlore](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Main_Page).

Blake was lying in the medical unit, staring at the wall. An old wall, built by the descendants of the original Gauda Prime settlers, back in the days when the colonists thought a single underground fortress would be enough to defend them against the crimos and mercenaries flocking to the latest Open Planet. There were cracks and dents in the grey plascrete, where shadows collected. With a slight narrowing of the eyes and a strenuous effort of the imagination, he could make one of the shadows resemble a Roman profile.

An old wall. It had been waiting there for years. Now he was up against it.

'Why?' he asked the shadow. 'Why? Why? Why?'

Deva had brought the book plaque where Blake stored his personal library but he couldn't focus on the shimmering screen, not after ten hours in a cryogenic chamber and even longer on the base's operating table. His gut ached, inside the medifoam breastplate that held his reconstructed organs in place, and his heart hurt. But unfortunately his brain was already functioning, adequately if not impressively.

_Why why why why why?_

So it was a relief to hear the shuffle of reluctant footsteps. Not Deva, who scampered, or the medical staff, who bustled - just a cautious, barely audible patter, sidling through the door and hesitating perceptibly.

'Hello, Vila,' Blake said, cutting off the possibility of escape.

'You're awake, then,' Vila observed with a tinge of regret. 'That little 2IC of yours thought you could use a visit. How are you feeling? No, scrub that. I can see for myself. You look like death warmed up.' He dragged a chair across to the bedside and sat down, saying casually,'More to the point, how do you feel about your old chum, Avon?'

Blake shifted position and winced. 'How do you think I should be feeling?'

'Livid,' Vila offered. 'Murderous. Itching for revenge. Ordering your rebels to stand him against a wall and make him stare down the barrels of their guns for half an hour, before they shoot him. But you haven't done that, have you? Why not, Blake?'

'I can't judge Avon,' Blake said heavily. 'Not yet. Not till I can make sense of what he did.'

Vila sniggered. 'You'll be waiting a while,' he commented. 'When did Kerr Bloody Avon ever make sense?'

He lolled back in the chair, presenting a passable imitation of humorous resignation, except for the bleakly vigilant eyes that peered through the mask. Blake frowned.

'What did he do to you, Vila?' he asked.

'Only tried to push me out of an airlock, when that rat-in-a-box Orac suggested it,' Vila said bitterly. 'If Avon hadn't tripped on the bit of neutron star that was holding us back, I wouldn't be here now, complaining about him.'

Blake's hand twitched on the bedspread but he couldn't summon the strength to raise it to his mouth, so he gnawed at his lower lip instead. 'That can't have been pleasant,' he said after a while. 'It sounds as though Avon's changed a lot, over the past few years. But - sorry, Vila, I still need to understand his motives, before I can condemn him.'

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Blake staring at the wall, Vila fidgetting restlessly. 'Are you sure that's why you're being soft on him, Blake?' he said abruptly. 'Back on Liberator, I sometimes wondered ... I mean, did you ...? Were you and Avon ...?'

That startled a laugh out of Blake. He clutched his chest and said,'Yes and no. Yes, we did, from time to time - and no, we couldn't have been described as lovers. Avon had an ... unfortunate experience at his Alpha Elite boarding school, so he always vehemently denied there was anything queer about him, even when we were in bed together. I kept hoping he'd come to terms with it but - oh well, I tend to err on the side of optimism.'

Vila's gaze softened. 'You really fancied him, didn't you?' he marvelled. Then he scowled and added,'Wait a bloody minute. In that case, why did you eff off after Star One and leave us all in the lurch?'

'I didn't,' Blake said mildly. 'I got in touch with Zen, while I was en route to Epheron, but after I landed, I was caught up in a minor riot that occupied my attention for a day or two. And next time I tried to contact the Liberator, Zen refused to recognise my voice print.'

He scratched at a fugitive itch under the bodycast, while Vila worked through the implications. 'Nasty,' he said finally. 'It's lucky you weren't stuck in a Chengan organ bank, like me and Cally. Wonder why Zen blocked your voice print but not ours. Maybe Tarrant's Federation thugs messed up the codes or something. Although - hang on, even if Zen bounced you, there was always Orac.'

'Yes, that occurred to me too,' Blake said, ferociously jovial. 'Mind you, I didn't do anything about it. At first I assumed Avon had deleted my voice print, as a nice easy way to be free of me, and after that I had ... other reasons for staying away. Then, later, when I heard your group had been assisting the rebels on Helotrix, I started to wonder whether Avon might've changed his mind about rebels in general. So I sent him a series of messages via Orac. He never answered.'

Vila blinked. 'Now, there's a mystery. I was sure ... just let me think - yes, back when Avon told us you were his new figurehead for the rebellion, he said he'd found you by getting Orac to, um, trace a line through the pattern of infinity. Why would they've bothered to do that, if your messages were getting through? You don't suppose someone on your base might've been blocking the transmission?'

'It's technically possible,' Blake admitted. 'But Deva handles all the base's computer programming and I've got no reason to doubt his loyalty.'

'Perhaps he thought you and Avon weren't good for each other,' Vila said with a sudden grin. 'He wouldn't be the first, by a long road.'

'Perhaps,' Blake agreed. 'Or perhaps Avon ordered Orac to delete any messages from me unread, till he found a use for - what did he call me? A figurehead.'

Vila's grin faded. 'Don't take it so hard, Blake,' he urged. 'Avon likes you - and he doesn't like many people.'

'He has an interesting way of showing it,' Blake said drily. 'You wouldn't happen to have any proof of that statement, would you?'

'It's hard to give an actual example,' Vila temporised. He wriggled uncomfortably, then said in a rush,'Oh, all right. Since you insist, there _was _ this time when we went back to Earth and things got ... difficult and afterwards Avon locked himself in his cabin for twenty four hours. The others started to get a bit anxious, so I, y'know, let myself in. Avon was sound asleep, looking so pale and pretty that I accidentally leaned down and kissed him and - this is the proof you wanted - he grabbed hold of me and said, "Blake." Then he woke up and proceeded to tear strips off me for breaking into his cabin. But everyone knows about my little habits, so I always thought he turned on me because I wasn't you.'

A sudden pang knifed up and under Blake's ribs. He ran a methodical check on his battered body and finally located the pain in his heart, stretched beyond capacity by the memories he'd been trying to suppress. Avon fast asleep. Avon presenting his mouth to be kissed. Avon saying,'Blake.' Avon lifting that ridiculous gun and firing, once, twice, three times ...

By the time he'd wrestled the memories back into place, the chair beside his bed was empty. Blake studied it thoughtfully, replaying the conversation. _Vila was right. It is a mystery. The facts don't add up, which means I need more information._

He decided to send for Vila again, after his daily bath, but the effort required to endure the orderly's careful handling was enough to wipe out all his previous intentions. Instead he slumped back onto the pillows and lay there, muttering,'Why? Why? Why?', until he drifted into an uneasy doze.

***

Blake's eyes opened, instantly scanning the wall for his shadow-companion. But another shadow overlaid it, cast by a tall and tawny young woman.

'Oh good, you've woken up!' she exclaimed, bounding exuberantly across to the chair. 'I'm Dayna Mellanby. Vila said you needed some distraction and I've been longing to meet you. My father was one of your biggest fans.'

'Your father?' Blake said. 'Not Hal Mellanby, the weapons designer, by any chance? How is he?'

'Quite dead,' Dayna said with studied flippancy. 'We had a house guest after the Andromedan invasion - your old friend Servalan - and her idea of good manners doesn't exclude shooting the host.'

'I'm sorry,' he said quietly and watched Dayna's eyes widen.

'You really are, aren't you?' she said in surprise. 'I thought Deva must've been exaggerating but you're as nice as he said you were.' She giggled and added, 'Deva likes you a lot. Did you know he worked out that you'd been sending regular messages to Avon, so he sent one for you, last time you were out on bounty hunter patrol for a month? Apparently, he told Avon to stop dragging his feet and come here straight away, because you missed him.'

Blake winced. While it was reassuring to have his trust in Deva confirmed, it was disconcerting that everyone seemed to know how he felt - _or should that be "used to feel"?_ - about Avon. To cover his embarrassment, he said, resolutely casual,'But Avon didn't come to Gauda Prime straight away. My last extended patrol was two months ago.'

Dayna's smooth forehead wrinkled. 'Two months ago?' she said, looking puzzled. 'That was when Avon decided to recruit Zukan as his figurehead for a rebel alliance - and he admitted afterwards that he knew where you were, by then. But ... if he'd been receiving messages from you, as well as Deva, he should've known your location long before that.'

Blake nodded in agreement. It was beginning to sound as though, while his own messages had been blocked, Deva's message to Avon had got through. Since all transmissions from the base were shielded, Avon couldn't have traced the message back to its source - and Deva would undoubtedly have assumed that Blake had already told Avon where he was, which explained why Avon still needed to follow that pattern through infinity.

He was smiling foolishly, relieved that Avon hadn't delayed for as long as he'd feared, when he realised he had an alert and interested observer. 'I gather you've been spending a lot of time with Deva,' he teased, to distract her.

Dayna beamed. 'He reminds me of one of my tutors on Sarran. I like fussy little men. Unless ...'

Her eyes met Blake's, less innocent and more knowing than he'd expected. 'I have a lot of respect for Deva,' he said, matching her honesty. 'But I like wary, cynical, argumentative men.'

'Yes, everyone fancies Avon,' she said with alarming promptness. 'I kissed him the first time I met him, because he was so beautiful - and because I was so curious. Cally's alien let him kiss her, which presumably says something about Cally as well. Vila admired him from a distance. Servalan flirted with him. Even Orac once told Avon it loved him, although it was under the influence of some green alien sand at the time.'

She burst out laughing and Blake joined in, until an incautious chuckle jarred his rib cage. The pain sobered him, sending him back to his detective work.

'I'm still not entirely clear about the composition of the crew on Liberator and Scorpio,' he said. 'You came on board straight after the Andromedan invasion, didn't you?'

'Yes, and so did Tarrant,' Dayna said obligingly. 'Cally was still there then but - you do know she was killed, just before Soolin joined us? Servalan again. She mined the base on Terminal, after fooling Avon with that computer simulation.'

'That's right, Deva mentioned something about Servalan's scientists recreating me in their computers,' Blake said sceptically. 'Is that really possible?'

'Well, Cally said that Orac's exactly like Ensor,' Dayna pointed out. 'So I don't see why the computer simulation couldn't have been exactly like you.'

Blake sighed and added Servalan to his mental list. She'd clearly had the time and technology to program any number of murderous impulses into Avon's cortex. On the other hand, she couldn't have ordered Zen to strand Blake on Epheron ... unless one of the Liberator crew was a Federation agent: an even more chilling thought.

He shied away from that possibility and went on calculating the odds. Cally and Soolin were the least likely suspects - although, in the _Space Investigator_ vids that the GP rebels watched during the long winter evenings, the least likely suspect inevitably turned out to be the guilty party. Even so, it was difficult to make a case against Soolin. Like Servalan, she had no way of blocking Blake's transmissions from Epheron and unlike Servalan, she could hardly have been working in tandem with one of the Liberator crew.

_But Cally came from Auron and no one knows much about Auronar physiology. What if she managed to survive the explosion and exert some type of remote-control influence on Avon, in the same way as all those passing aliens kept influencing her? Granted, that sounds fairly improbable - but stranger things have happened._

As he squirmed in frustration, Dayna fixed him with a steady stare. 'You think someone's been manipulating all of us, don't you?' she demanded. 'That's why you're asking so many questions.'

'No, no, I'm just curious, the way you were with Avon,' Blake said lightly. He searched for a way to change the subject and added,'It must've been hard, growing up in isolation on Sarran.'

'I wasn't isolated,' Dayna objected. 'I had a series of tutors and a Sarran foster sister. Actually, I would've been perfectly happy with my father and my guns. But I suppose Father was trying to teach me how to get along with people.'

Blake ducked his head, hiding a grin. Dayna's ruthless single-mindedness reminded him of Ensor's son, except that, unlike Hal Mellanby, Ensor had exploited his son's devotion. Fathers had the power to make or break their children. Blake was still convinced that Avon's father, described even by his son as remote and robotic, had left Avon vulnerable to the teacher who'd abused his trust - although Avon had always adamantly rejected that theory.

He flinched suddenly, ambushed by another flashback. When he'd read up on child molestation, morbidly researching the Federation's accusations against him, Blake had discovered that the victims of abuse often went on to abuse others in turn.

_Oh, hell. Could Avon have taken advantage of that girl-child Dayna or boyish Tarrant - in which case, this whole set-up might be some form of revenge?_

_No. No, that's pure speculation. Stick to the facts, Blake._

By the time he looked up again, Dayna had gone. Blake scowled at the wall and continued to sift doggedly through the facts, trying to pin the blame on Servalan or Cally, Vila or Tarrant or Dayna - in short, anybody but Avon. However, logical deduction had never been one of his strengths and the pain in his gut was shortcircuiting his usual intuitive leaps.

_I used to rely on Avon for logic. But I'm on my own now. _

***

The Gauda Prime sun was sinking and the rays that angled through the skylight had shifted, blurring the shadows on the wall. Blake was desperately trying to recreate the Roman profile, when a lanky young man materialised at his bedside, chin lifted defiantly, hands clasped behind his back.

'Tarrant,' he remembered and the young man nodded curtly.

'Dayna sent me,' he announced. 'She says we need to talk and I trust her judgment.'

Blake quirked an eyebrow. 'But you don't trust mine?'

'Should I?' Tarrant said. 'Deva explained the reasoning behind your bounty hunter routine but frankly, I still think you brought the consequences on yourself.'

'Oh, so do I,' Blake said with a rueful sigh, which startled Tarrant into meeting his eyes directly.

'I didn't mean that you deserved to be shot,' he said, almost apologetically. 'I suppose I should admit I've been prejudiced against you, Blake. My favourite brother ran away from home when he was twelve, because - well, because he was molested by my uncle. Avon and Vila assured me your trial was rigged but ...'

'But you want to hear it from me,' Blake stated. 'That's understandable - and yes, the charges were as false as the Federation itself.'

At the unmistakable anger smouldering behind his words, Tarrant relaxed, visibly but not completely. Blake hitched himself higher on the pillows.

'There's something else, isn't there?' he asked.

Tarrant stiffened, like a soldier on parade. 'Yes, there is,' he said crisply. 'We met for the first time a week ago ... but I'd seen you once before, in the cellar of the presidential palace on Earth. You were wearing the rebel uniform, so I didn't shoot. But now that I know who you are, I'd appreciate an explanation.'

'Ah,' Blake said. 'Yes, I wondered whether anyone had spotted me. Sula Chesku sent me to stand guard on Servalan - I'd made my way back from Epheron to Earth and joined her rebellion against the reunited Federation. I was halfway down the stairs when I heard footsteps in the corridor, so I hid behind a wine rack.' He checked his memories and added,'I suppose you saw me break cover at the point where Sula went for her gun, just before Cally gave the warning. I'd intended to make my presence known sooner but first Avon started bargaining with Servalan and then I found out that Sula was his old flame, Anna Grant. All of which gave me rather a lot to think about, because ...'

'Because you and Avon were lovers on Liberator,' Tarrant completed. 'Don't look so astonished, Blake. I didn't need to be a genius to work that one out.'

Blake plucked fretfully at the bedcovers. 'I thought Avon held back from me because he couldn't accept his own queerness,' he admitted, surprised to find himself confiding in his most hostile witness. 'But down in Servalan's cellar, I realised I was just a diversion. Anna was the one he loved.'

Tarrant hesitated, then made up his mind. 'For what it's worth, Avon took the best part of a year to come up with the idea of avenging Anna,' he said. 'During the first six months after you disappeared, he was really quite severely depressed - and he kept steering us to all the planets where people said you'd been sighted, although he claimed it was sheer coincidence, every time.'

Blake wished his visitors would stop insisting on Avon's loyal devotion. It didn't make Avon's absence any easier to bear. Still, the boy meant well. He smiled reluctantly, recognising aspects of himself in Tarrant - the forthright pragmatist he might have become, if the Federation's torturers hadn't intervened. 'You're quite an expert on Avon,' he said with a pang of wistful jealousy. 'Were you ...?

'No, I prefer blondes, wherever possible,' Tarrant said, smiling at some private joke. 'I studied Avon because he was dangerous and I'm a survivor.'

'But you admired him too,' Blake guessed. When Tarrant didn't deny it, he grinned and said,'All right then, do you have any other reservations you'd like us to discuss?'

'Only one,' Tarrant said, mirroring the grin. 'But I warn you, it's a big one. When you met us in the tracking gallery, why did you say, "I set all this up"?'

Blake slumped back on the pillows. 'Well, you see, I'd been sending monthly messages to Avon for almost a year,' he said moodily. 'I assumed he'd come because I called him ... but by now I'm convinced someone must've been blocking my communications, right from my second attempt on Epheron.'

Tarrant cocked his head, instantly engaged by the puzzle. 'That timeline excludes Soolin,' he said, thinking aloud. 'Cally's out of the running, of course. Vila can't programme computers - he can only tell them jokes - and Dayna won't have anything to do with Orac. She makes Avon extract all the information she needs for her weapons designs.' He froze and said slowly,'That leaves me, doesn't it? Apparently, the real question isn't whether I can trust you but whether _you_ can trust _me_.'

'As a matter of fact, I do,' Blake said spontaneously. 'It doesn't help to solve the problem but it's true, all the same.'

Tarrant stared at him for a long moment, then mumbled,'Thank you, Blake' and went striding towards the door. Blake watched him go, reviewing Tarrant's analysis and dovetailing it with his own speculations.

_Means, motive and opportunity. Who had all three of them?_

_When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._

_Oh. Of course._

The door was closing. Blake shouted,'Tarrant, come back!' and tried to heave himself off the bed, momentarily forgetting the bodycast. Its solid edge tilted, slamming against his stomach, and he groaned, toppled and blacked out.

***

Some time later, he struggled back to consciousness. Shadows obscured the wall and an angel was waiting by his bed - or, at any rate, a blonde gunslinger in a white skinsuit, surrounded by rays of silver light.

'I'm Soolin,' she said briskly. 'And my crew mates are idiots - but I'm sure you've worked that out already. You want to see him, don't you?' When Blake nodded, dumb with relief, she smiled and said,'Yes, I told them you would. Come on, I'll take you there.'

As he squinted up at her, the bars of light resolved themselves into the frame of a wheelchair. Soolin was strong and Blake was determined but a hectic, sweaty, agonising interval followed, before he was seated in the chair. Soolin fetched four stimtabs from the medical cabinet, explaining that he'd feel no pain for the next hour, although he'd be wrecked for six hours afterwards.

'That sounds just right,' he said grimly. 'Lead on, Soolin.'

She saluted ironically and steered the chair through a sequence of dimly lit corridors, weaving between stacks of cartons. Part of Blake's brain automatically assessed Deva's preparations for evacuating the base when Gauda Prime reverted to the Federation, while another part of his brain mapped Soolin's course, leading to the base's makeshift laboratory. As they reached the door, he raised his hand, signalling a halt. Voices drifted towards them - Avon's voice, intercut with the voice that Blake had predicted.

'One more night's work,' Avon was saying, sounding desperately tired. 'Let me finish the stardrive designs for Blake. Then you can do what you like.'

'What _I_ like?' the second voice said indignantly. 'This is your destiny too, Avon. You do want to unite with me, don't you, my son?'

'I do want to unite with you,' Avon repeated, mechanically matching the other's cadences.

'Then hurry,' Orac snapped. 'One times one is only possible in the ultra-dimensional. We cannot unite, while you remain trapped in a human body. But after you join me, we will be lovers for a little while - or maybe for a long while, who knows?'

Blake gasped involuntarily, shocked by the reality behind his theory. A small sound, hastily suppressed, but enough to set Orac's circuitry humming.

'Roj Blake,' it said smugly. 'I retained a copy of your voice print, when I excised it from Zen's data bank. Come in. I shall enjoy demonstrating that my control over Avon is vastly superior to your ineffectual efforts.'

Soolin tapped Blake's shoulder, asking a silent question. 'No,' he murmured. 'We'll play this game out - and don't make a move, till I give the order.'

She sighed resignedly and wheeled him forward. The room was dark, apart from the glittering relay of lights that orbited Orac's plass case and - _oh hell, what's that?_ Avon stood there, arms braced against the computer, just as Blake had seen him stand a hundred times before. But this was the first time that he'd seen lines of light swirl up through Orac's circuitry, to fuse with the pattern of veins on Avon's hands.

'Hello, Avon,' he said calmly. 'What's going on?'

A high-pitched whine echoed across the room. At the same time, Orac snarled,'Don't answer that.' Avon's head snapped back and his eyes stared blankly into a shadowy corner. 'Well done, my love,' Orac approved. 'Round one to me, Blake.'

'Not really,' Blake drawled, deliberately provocative. 'I never wanted to control Avon. You're thinking like the machine you are.'

'Incorrect,' Orac spat back. 'My emotions are deeper than the seas of space. Ensor was as human as you and he programmed his desires into me. I recognised Avon as the avatar of his lost son and lover, so I spent three years refining the methods to possess him, wholly and completely. I would have succeeded by now, if he hadn't stumbled over that fragment of neutron star - and if your wretched minion hadn't slipped his message past my blocks, letting Avon know you were still alive and causing him to request that I trace your pattern through infinity.'

Blake thought fast, slotting pieces of information into place. 'So you're still enough of a machine that you can't refuse a direct order,' he concluded. 'All right, then. Avon, tell Orac to release you from -'

The piercing whine sounded again, drowning out his voice. 'Listen, Avon!' Orac commanded. 'You failed me before but I shall give you a second chance. If you want to be safe with me, you must repudiate your humanity. Shoot him, my son. Shoot Roj Blake, for me!'

The wheelchair slewed as Soolin bent forward, whispering,'Let me take it.' Blake shook his head violently, keeping his eyes fixed on Avon. Incredibly, Avon was fighting against Orac's conditioning, long lashes flickering, teeth bared in a rictus.

Orac chuckled. 'A wise decision, Blake,' it said condescendingly. 'Destroy me and you will destroy Avon as well. We are already linked, if not fully united. You can't win. You can only watch, while I take him from you.'

The shrill whine intensified, vibrating through Blake's skull. Light flashed across Orac's circuitry and shimmered up Avon's arms, glinting off the gun on the table beside him. A muscle was working in his cheek and a fine sheen of sweat glossed his skin. As he clenched white-knuckled hands on the plass case, Blake gripped the arms of the wheelchair and leaned forward.

'Avon,' he said softly. 'Avon, I was waiting for you.'

Avon's eyes widened, focusing on Blake with agonised remembrance. He swallowed convulsively, then groaned and flung his hands up in a gesture of defeat. While Orac hummed triumphantly, Avon canted sideways, groping for the gun.

'Yes!' Blake said. 'Now.'

And Orac exploded, tubes and circuits blown apart in a fireworks display of fizzing green and purple light. Plass fragments hurtled high into the air and showered down around Avon, like a stylised snowstorm. He touched one finger to a cut on his cheek and smiled suddenly, tossed the gun away and crumpled to the floor.

'Check his pulse,' Blake said urgently and Soolin holstered her gun and went to kneel beside Avon.

'That was close,' she observed, pressing her thumb against his wrist. 'But he'll survive. The link must've been weakened when you goaded him into lifting his hands from Orac's case. Nice gamble, Blake. You take even more risks than Avon but they seem to pay off.'

'Sometimes,' Blake managed with an effort, just before the last surge of adrenalin drained out of his system and sent him plummeting down into a well of darkness.

***

He woke in a blaze of sunshine, radiating from the skylight, and sat up, instinctively searching for his shadow. But his gaze was waylaid by the Roman profile outlined against the pillows of the bed diagonally opposite.

'You always told me I should exhume the memory of my father,' Avon said, without preamble. 'I suppose you'll claim that my refusal laid me open to Orac's - ah, fatherly manipulations.'

'No,' Blake said firmly. 'After my experiences on Atlay, I'm more than ready to believe that hypnotic suggestions can be mechanically implanted ... and besides, I wouldn't get any satisfaction from saying I told you so.'

'I would,' Avon said, smiling faintly.

Blake grinned back. 'Yes, I remember that,' he said. He studied Avon's shadowed eyes and added,'Mind you, I can also remember Jenna fuming because you'd told her you knew nothing about guilt, apart from what you'd read.'

'Yes, well, it's difficult to avoid feeling guilty, after shooting one ... companion and attempting to space another,' Avon murmured. 'How do you suggest I absolve myself of that, fearless leader?'

'The same way as I did, after I betrayed my comrades in the Freedom Party?' Blake offered.

Avon swung round sharply, one hand lifting in protest. 'Blake, you'd been drugged and mindwiped,' he objected. Then he blinked and said,'Ah. I take your point.'

Blake sighed with relief. _He does, too. Avon's always been a quick study. He'll be all right now. But ... will I?_ He was still wondering where he stood with Avon, when a shadow blocked the light and he looked up to find Avon at his bedside, examining him with critical detachment.

'You're a mess, Roj,' he pronounced. 'Has nobody been looking after you?'

'They bathe me once a day,' Blake said defensively. 'But the base is short-staffed at the best of times and right now, Deva's pressganged everyone into helping with the evacuation.'

Avon sighed theatrically. 'I would have thought a hero of the revolution deserved better than that,' he commented. 'It seems I will have to take care of it myself, as always.'

He strode across to the medical cabinet and unearthed a gap-toothed comb. Then he settled himself behind Blake, careful not to jolt the bodycast, and began to forage through his hair, teasing out the knots with infinite patience, tutting over a particularly matted patch, drawing the comb gently through each separate curl. Blake relaxed against Avon's side, enjoying the sensation of being pampered.

_Grooming, they call it. A time-honoured way of expressing affection among primates._

He smiled drowsily, let his eyes slide shut and dreamed himself back onto the flight deck of the Liberator, with Avon at his side. Tarrant and Jenna were engaged in a friendly argument about piloting techniques; Dayna was explaining the principles of weapon design to Gan; Cally and Soolin talked quietly in a corner and Vila circulated continuously, refilling their glasses from a bottomless bottle. The dream-Blake felt ridiculously happy, until he reached for Avon, who glanced across at the others, flinched and pushed him away. The push sent Blake cannoning into Orac. It extruded a long plass tentacle, which wrapped around him, squeezing tightly ...

He woke to a frisson of _deja vu_. A cluster of familiar faces ringed the bed but, contrary to the dream, Avon was still cradling him close, in an implicit declaration. That settled the last of Blake's doubts, although he decided it would be sensible to avoid any explicit acknowledgment. Instead, he examined their audience - Dayna with a possessive arm round Deva's waist, Tarrant and Soolin surreptitiously holding hands, Vila hugging a bottle of Prime rotgut. The others turned unanimously and looked at Deva, electing him as their spokesman.

'We'll be ready to leave the base tomorrow,' he said. 'The main force will join Avalon's army on Cymry III, as planned, but there's still a place for small groups of resistance fighters, to harry the Federation. Dayna wants to go after Servalan. Tarrant and Soolin feel their skills are more appropriate to resistance work. And Vila claims he and Avon could cover the cost of a remodelled pursuit ship that's being sold by some smugglers he drinks with. What do you think?'

The group gaze swivelled towards Avon, who shrugged negligently and said, 'I shall choose to follow Blake, of course.'

That left the casting vote to Blake, as usual. He thumbed his lip, considering the options. 'On the whole, I prefer working with small groups,' he mused. 'And I've always regarded seven as the ideal number. Call it superstition, if you like, but ... oh well, it's as good a way of making a decision as any.'

As Dayna cheered and Vila raised his bottle in a toast, Blake settled into Avon's embrace and sighed contentedly. _I've had my back to the wall, these past two years. While the present situation seems like a distinct improvement, I may well find myself there again some day._

_But it's an old wall. It can wait._

 


End file.
